


Dhoonde Kinara

by AkelaKela



Series: Bollywood One-Shots [3]
Category: Bollywood Movies, Haider (2014)
Genre: Bollywood, Gen, IOK, Indian Character, Indian Occupied Kashmir, Kashmir, PTSD, Shahid Kapoor - Freeform, Shraddha Kapoor, Srinagar, Tabú
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:36:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkelaKela/pseuds/AkelaKela
Summary: Kashmir, a silent spectator to Haider's search.





	Dhoonde Kinara

I am an orphan nation.

Born to be oppressed. Crushed. Torn.

To birth thousands more.

I watch my child, searching for a father. The fragile threads of his hope woven into the fabric, the very fibre of his being. His father's face stares up at him from every page, printed from the copy machine in the small back-alley shop. The machine jammed three times, but he has his copies.

Every little disappointment, every single rejection snaps a little bit of him. Tears one more of the threads within him. He sees countless headshakes. Watches so many faces decline his request indifferently. It hurts. Deep within.

The cricket bat back at his house is charred and blackened. The sticker on the back of it hangs at a crazy angle, flapping in the breeze until he tears it off.

He found his father's other shoe.

The pair sits proudly by the door and he dusts them off every once in a while. He has to bring his father home first. Then the shoes won't stay by the door all the time anymore. Maybe he should buy his father a new pair of shoes.

Arshi flashes her press pass at another guard and he walks down another dark hallway. Down to a row of plastic chairs facing each other. The hall is filled with people. Quiet people. They look like murmurs. Murmurs in a world of cracks and yells.

He doesn't remember when he started loving Arshi. It happened.

Her arms were around him, that day. When he saw the wreckage of his home.

_"Ro lo."_

_"Cry."_

_She'd begged, her tone oh so soft._

The woman next to him shifts, ever so slightly. She moves the photo into his line of vision. The boy in the picture is young. He must be her son. He should have been surprised. The boy's moustache is still baby-hair soft.

He isn't even a man yet.

But he knows all too well. And he isn't surprised.

Guilt drops his heart to his knees, stone cold and unforgiving. He shakes his head. As gently as he can. He knows how her heart will break a little more when he does. He unfolds the black-and-white A-4 size photo of his father.

The ink's worn off in a few places, along wrinkles and creases here and there. But his father's eyes shine through behind the lenses of his glasses, as clear and expressive as ever. Dr Hilal Meer's eyes hadn't always been clear. Not the last time he'd locked his gaze with his son's.

_"Khayal rakna apna."_

_"Take care of yourself."_

_He clapped a hand on his son's shoulder._

In spite of himself, he'd let his eyes fill with tears. The woman shook her head, even more gently. Her hand reached out, caressing his cheek. Wordlessly, she stroked his face. They sat there, united in their shared sorrow, destined to search for souls long departed.

-

His head was lowered, his eyes cast down onto the dusty toad beneath his boots.

The shouts reached his ears first, then his addled brain. He registered them a little too late. The soldier shoved him, the waving his gun. Two more men ripped his bag off his back, rudely rifling through his belongings.

The soldier looked over the stack of pictures and flung them back in his face, his lip curled in abject disdain.

-

The snow crunched beneath his boots and Roohdar's voice rung in his ears. The sign of the  _qabristan_  was small, it's simple wood matching the tiny numbered plaques at the head of each grave.

The old, white-bearded man handed him a small packet and, with a pat and a reassuring word, left. His father's face stared up at him from the glossy colour picture. Gone was the deep brown gaze, the thoughtful, gentlemanly air. His father's features were the ones that stared up at him. They were gaunt, haunted and the hunted expression hadn't been wiped from his face.

Not even in death.

The usually short- clipped and combed hair he'd always seen frame his  _abbu's_  face was long and unkempt, hanging away from his face. His head was tipped back. Ice had threaded it's fingers through his hair and the long beard that covered the lower half of his face.

The son's boots crunched through the snow.

He stopped in front of the small spot. The numbered grave stood in front of him. He sank to his knees in the ice that coated the ground.

**"Babu jee!"**

Haider clawed at the snow, at my cold chest, his fists clenching. And there was no one but the skeletal trees and I to hear his anguished sobs.

I am a nation bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the hands of 'justice'.

My name, you ask?

Kashmir.


End file.
